Ke'Shawn Vaughn 2020 NFL Draft Profile

Ke’Shawn Vaughn 2020 NFL Draft Profile

A four-star recruit out of Nashville, TN, Vaughn played his high school football for Pearl-Cohn where he generated several offers from mostly average FBS programs. Schools such as Ohio State, Purdue, Duke, and Wisconsin made offers to Vaughn before he chose to play for Illinois. However, the decision did not work out for Vaughn at first and in 2017 he transferred to Vanderbilt as a redshirt sophomore where he finished his college football career.

Vaughn burst onto the scene in 2018 as a redshirt junior where he played in 12 games and finished the season with 157 carries for 1,244 rushing yards as well as 12 touchdowns. Additionally, Vaughn averaged 7.9 yards per rush along with 103.7 rushing yards per game and his season rushing total was the second most in Vanderbilt history. The following year Vaughn’s numbers dipped a bit, but he still managed to put together a solid season as he played in every game and totaled 1,015 rushing yards along with nine touchdowns.

Strengths

solid ball carrier vision;

a north-south runner who hits open holes hard;

NFL caliber frame;

demonstrates good leg effort when driving forward;

low center of gravity helps absorb contact;

rarely takes negative yardage and does a good job of taking the space that is there;

plays with admirable effort in all phases of the game.

Weaknesses

not much lateral movement to his game and rarely creates his own running lanes;

pass protection is average at best;

does not show consistent elusiveness;

lacks the power needed to run through defenders, although he is willing;

appears to have average receiving skills, but was not heavily used in the passing game;

average speed for an NFL running back;

NFL Comparison: Stevan Ridley

Projection: Mid fourth to late fifth round

Bottom Line

Ke’Shawn Vaughn possesses no elite level qualities within his style of play. With just average speed, Vaughn does not play with enough elusiveness or lateral movement to be considered a shifty back. Additionally, Vaughn does not yet have quite enough power to be considered as a bruising short-yardage physical back. However, Vaughn does possess solid ball carrier vision which, when his offensive line opens a hole, he finds it with ease and hits it hard. Furthermore, Vaughn deserves credit for his overall style of play and will never shy away from contact as well as gives consistent leg effort when it comes to driving a pile forward. Given his lack of overall athleticism, Vaughn will need to make sure the fundamentals of his game are sound in order to stick in the NFL. He does a good job of not taking unnecessary negative yardage on plays, but his versatility as a pass-catcher along with pass protector certainly needs improvement.